Victoria
The message arrived at 20:47. It wasn't an unusual time; The Antiquarian did not observe polite business hours. Yet, there was something about the way the notification appeared on Victoria's laptop screen that made her stop pouring her second coffee and simply stare at the blinking cursor in the corner of the screen.
One tap. Pause. Three taps. Pause. One tap.
The access code.
Victoria set the mug down, sat, and dismantled the first layer of encryption with fingers moving from muscle memory—twelve characters, the seventh always uppercase, a cipher rotation based on the Julian calendar date. The Antiquarian loved things that felt like puzzles but were actually just tedious.
Second layer. Third. The file opened. No header. No greeting.
The Antiquarian did not believe in unnecessary formalities... ironic for an organization that had existed since before Victoria's great-grandfather was born. Only text. White on black. Neat as an autopsy report.
RAVENSHIRE ACADEMY. SUSPECTED OBSIDIAN SOCIETY ACTIVE CELL. OPERATION: CYCLOPS IV. ASSETS REQUIRED: FOUR CYCLOPES, FULL DEPLOYMENT. TIMELINE: ENROLLMENT OPENS IN 21 DAYS.
Victoria read to the end. Then she read it again. Then she stood up, walked to the window, and stared at the sleeping city below for thirty full seconds. Ravenshire.
The name wasn't unfamiliar. The name could never be unfamiliar—not to her, not with the history she shared with those old stone walls. For years she had waited for that name to reappear on her screen, as if knowing that eventually, it would. And now it was there, two lines among many, calm and sterile like all of The Antiquarian's instructions.
Full deployment. That meant her three younger siblings. Victoria closed her eyes for a single second. Then she opened a new tab, accessed three separate channels, and began to type.
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Helena
The building should have been vacated two hours ago. Helena knew this because she was the one who had ensured it, an hour before the operation began, patrolling the fourth floor with a fake clipboard and a visitor's lanyard convincing enough to keep the middle-aged security guard in the lobby from asking further questions. Thirteen rooms. All empty. One malfunctioning elevator and one fire escape for which Helena had duplicated the key three days ago.
There should have been no complications. Should have.
"You said he went home at seven," Helena whispered into her earpiece, her back pressed against the dark corridor wall, eyes fixed on the door at the end that still leaked a thin sliver of light from underneath.
"He usually goes home at seven." The voice in the earpiece sounded slightly defensive. "Data from the last three weeks—"
"Data from the last three weeks doesn't help me now, sweetheart." Helena peeked around the corner. A shadow moved behind the door. Someone was still there. "How much longer until the swap is finished on the second floor?"
"Eight minutes."
"I need seven."
She straightened her jacket, checked her stance out of habit, no weapon; this operation didn't require one, and Helena never carried anything she didn't need and began walking toward the door with a gait entirely different from before. No longer hugging the wall. An open stride, relaxed shoulders, the expression of someone who was lost and a bit embarrassed by it.
The door opened before she could even knock. The man in the doorway stared at her with a mix of surprise and suspicion that was very easy to read. Helena smiled... a specific smile, one she had practiced for years until it felt like a reflex: sincere enough to be convincing, clumsy enough to be non-threatening. "Oh, I'm so sorry, I thought this was the archives room. I'm on the wrong floor, aren't I?"
The suspicion on the man's face melted into something much more manageable. Six minutes and forty seconds later, Helena was in the fire escape with the documents she needed folded neatly inside her jacket, and the man was still in his office with the impression that he had just helped a confused student find her way.
At the bottom floor, her phone vibrated. Not a normal notification. A specific vibration pattern, three times in a row with consistent pauses. Victoria's private channel. Helena stopped on the second floor, opened an app that looked like a standard weather app from the outside, and read. Two sentences. Nothing more.
We have a new assignment. Come home when you're done.
Helena read the sentence twice. Stowed the phone. Continued down the stairs. Outside the building, the night air felt colder than before.
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Angel
The laboratory smelled like a mixture of formaldehyde, old paper, and something Angel didn't want to identify further, but Angel had been here long enough to stop noticing. Third shelf from the left. Second row from the bottom. Between a 1987 edition microbiology textbook and a collection of journals that seemingly hadn't been touched since they were printed, there was a two-centimeter gap that shouldn't have existed on a full shelf.
Angel pulled out a penlight, illuminated the gap, and inserted two fingers. Click. A small panel on the side of the shelf popped open. Inside: a flash drive, wrapped in clear plastic, with a faded handwritten label. Angel took it, photographed its original position before moving it, and slipped it into a pocket.
The job was done in four minutes and twenty seconds. Less than estimated. Angel turned and stopped. There was a shadow under the laboratory door. Someone was outside, standing close enough for the shadow of their feet to be visible through the gap. Not moving. Angel counted.
One. Two. Three.
The shadow left. The sound of footsteps receded, then vanished.
Angel waited another twenty seconds before moving a habit formed not from instructions, but from the observation that people who hurry out of tense situations are often the ones who get caught. Then, Angel walked out at a normal pace, locking the lab door from the outside with the same key used to enter, and headed down the back stairs of the academic building.
The phone in Angel's pocket vibrated halfway down the stairs. Angel pulled it out without stopping. The screen displayed a notification from a calculator app that wasn't a calculator, showing numbers that, when flipped and read in a system known only to four people in the world, meant one thing:
Come home.
Angel put the phone back. Outside, the rain had just started to fall.
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Romeo
"Okay, okay, okay," Romeo descended three steps at a time, earpiece in one ear and a small camera in the other hand, "if I turn left now, who do I run into?"
"Two people. But they're talking, backs to you."
"Talking doesn't mean they won't hear me."
"You can walk slowly."
"I can't walk slowly, I walk fast by default, I'm already..." Romeo turned left and immediately slowed his pace to something he hoped looked casual instead of like someone who had just been running, "I'm already trying."
The two people at the end of the corridor didn't turn around. Romeo passed them with his head slightly bowed, camera already in his pocket, hands in his jacket. Seven steps. Eight. Nine. The next corner, and he was out of sight. "Clear."
"I know." Romeo exhaled. "The exit?"
"Turn right, go straight, blue door at the end. Code 4471."
"Why is it always four digits that have nothing to do with each other—"
"Romeo."
"Yeah, yeah, I'm going."
Blue door. Code 4471. The night outside felt like a prize. Romeo stood on the sidewalk, hands on his knees, letting the air fill his lungs in a way that felt very different from the air inside. In the earpiece, his field contact's voice had been replaced by a silence that meant the operation was over and the channel was closed.
His phone lit up.
A message from Victoria. Not a regular text, a different format, which meant this wasn't a sibling conversation. Romeo read it once, furrowed his brow, and read it again. Then he straightened up, looked toward the building he had just left, and sighed in a very specific way—the way that only appeared when something big was beginning and he wasn't yet sure if he was ready or not.
He was never sure. That was probably part of the job.
"Ravenshire," he read the name again quietly, almost tasting it on his tongue. A night breeze passed by. Romeo put the phone in his pocket and began to walk in the direction that, a few weeks from now, would take him much further than he could imagine tonight.
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Victoria's apartment never felt like a home.
It wasn't that it lacked comfort. The furniture was meticulously chosen, the lighting was warm, and there was a plant in the corner of the living room that somehow stayed alive despite Victoria rarely being around to water it. Yet, there was something about the way the space was arranged that always reminded the three of them that this wasn't just a residence. It was too neat. Too functional. Like someone who had learned to mimic the concept of a home from external references.
Romeo arrived first which was unusual, as Romeo was almost always the last to show up.
He tossed his jacket onto the sofa, opened the fridge, and closed it again without taking anything when he realized the contents consisted only of mineral water and something wrapped in unlabeled plastic. He sat at the kitchen island, tapping his fingers against the wooden surface, staring at Victoria's open laptop at the end of the table, the screen was dark, but the charger light was glowing.
Eight minutes later, Angel entered without knocking.
Romeo turned. "You're dry."
"The rain stopped." Angel set a bag on the floor near the door and sat in the chair furthest from Romeo not because there was trouble between them, but because Angel always chose the position with the widest vantage point of the room. Habit. "What time did you get the message?"
"Around nine-ish. You?"
"Same."
They lapsed into silence. Not an awkward silence, the silence of two people who were accustomed to one another in precise doses and knew that not every quiet moment needed to be filled.
Helena arrived seven minutes later, the scent of the night air still clinging to her hair and the expression of someone who had just finished a task and hadn't quite shifted out of operational mode.
"Is anyone eating dinner?" she asked without preamble, dropping her bag on the sofa next to Romeo's jacket.
"The fridge is full of water and mysteries," Romeo answered.
"So, that's a no." Helena shed her jacket, sat on the sofa, and looked around. "Where's Vic?"
As if hearing her name, the bedroom door opened.
Victoria emerged with a laptop in hand and a specific expression, one the three of them had learned to read long ago: not tense, not anxious, but calculative. The look of someone who had processed all the variables and was now deciding on the order of delivery.
She placed the laptop on the coffee table. She sat in the armchair across from the sofa, looking at each of them one by one in a way that felt like a confirmation ensuring they were all there, all whole, all present.
"How was the operation?" she asked.
"Finished," Helena replied.
"Clean?"
"Always."
Victoria nodded. Her eyes shifted to Angel. "Did you get the flash drive?"
"In my pocket." Angel made no move to produce it. "You can have it after the briefing."
A corner of Victoria's mouth quirked up not a full smile, just an acknowledgment that Angel, as usual, already knew there was a briefing before the briefing even began. She turned the laptop toward the three of them.
The screen displayed a single thing: a logo they all recognized but were never truly comfortable seeing.
The Antiquarian.
A circle with an eye in the center a stylization too literal for an organization that claimed to favor subtle symbolism. However, Victoria had once remarked that that might be the point: hiding behind something that looked too obvious to be taken seriously.
"They sent a mission last night," Victoria said. Her voice was different now, not the voice of a sister asking about dinner, but a flatter, more precise tone. The voice they all knew as the signal that this room had changed functions. "Full deployment. You're all going in."
Romeo leaned back against his chair. "School?"
"School."
"For how long?"
"One semester. Maybe more."
A brief silence followed. Romeo glanced at Angel. Angel didn't look back.
Victoria typed something, and the screen changed to show an aerial photo a massive stone building in the center of a sprawling complex surrounded by ancient trees. The iron gates in front looked excessive for a school, even from a satellite photo.
"Ravenshire Academy." Victoria let the name hang for a moment. "Boarding school. In operation for one hundred years. Its reputation is clean—too clean for an institution its age. Its alumni are embedded in almost every vital sector: government, military, finance, several names in major media." A pause. "The Antiquarian suspects an active cell of the Obsidian Society is operating inside."
Helena, who had been quiet until now, let out a small sound not of surprise, but of confirmation for something she had anticipated. "Obsidian."
"You know them?" Romeo asked.
"The name. From a briefing two years ago." Helena stared at the screen. "They're the ones with the network in those three universities."
"The very same." Victoria clicked to the next slide. Reports. Photos. Names partially redacted. "Reports from The Antiquarian's internal assets mention two simultaneous operations running within Ravenshire, a drug distribution network and a prostitution ring involving students. But those aren't the primary focus." She stopped. "Those are the entry points. What you need to find is how deep the Society's roots go, who is pulling the strings, and what they are planning."
"Is there a timeline?" Angel asked.
"Ravenshire has its Centennial celebration. One hundred years since the academy's founding—at the end of this semester. Internal assets suspect something is scheduled to happen then." Victoria partially closed the laptop. "You have one semester to get in, find the answers, and get out."
Romeo raised a hand halfway. "Can I ask something that might be a bit obvious?"
"Ask."
"Why can't we go in as siblings?" Romeo looked at Victoria. "We are siblings. That's not a lie we have to remember."
"Because you are entering three different social circles that, in some cases, are diametrically opposed," Victoria answered. "If anyone finds out you know each other, one of you or all of you could be used as leverage." Her eyes moved to Romeo in a way that hadn't changed much but somehow felt heavier. "At Ravenshire, information about the people you care about is a weapon. The less they know about your connections, the safer you are."
Romeo didn't answer. Not because he disagreed but because he recognized the logic and hated that he did.
"Placements," Victoria continued, returning to the screen. "Helena... The Ivory Assembly. The most exclusive social circle at Ravenshire; Obsidian recruitment begins here. You'll enter as a transfer student from a family influential enough to catch their eye." She swiped to the next photo. "Angel... The Alchemyst. A science club. It seems harmless, but assets report lab activity not listed on official schedules. Your entrance exam scores have been rigged to place you there." She swiped again. "Romeo... The Ashborn."
Romeo frowned. "The rebels?"
"The ones perceived as rebels," Victoria corrected. "The distinction is important."
Something in her tone made Romeo fall silent for a moment.
"You are not to communicate directly unless it is an absolute emergency," Victoria continued. "All reports go through me. Channels have been prepared on your respective devices—you'll receive technical instructions before departure." She closed the laptop completely. "Any questions?"
"One," Angel said. "The Antiquarian has an internal asset at Ravenshire... you said so. Why aren't they enough? Why do they need us?"
Victoria stared at Angel for two seconds before answering.
"Because their asset stopped reporting six weeks ago."
Silence.
"Stopped reporting," Helena repeated quietly. "That means—"
"It means we don't know," Victoria said. "Not yet."
The room grew quiet in a way that was different from the previous silences. Romeo looked at the table. Helena looked at the dark laptop screen. Angel looked nowhere in particular, but there was a shift in their posture—a slight tightening of the shoulders that perhaps only Victoria and Romeo could read.
"You don't have to accept this," Victoria said finally. The sentence sounded formal and a bit strange coming from her, like something she had memorized from a protocol she didn't entirely agree with. "The Antiquarian is requesting. The decision is—"
"I'm in," Helena said.
"Me too," Angel added, almost simultaneously.
Neither looked at the other. They didn't need to.
Romeo let out a long breath, the kind of breath that held many things at once and expressed nothing in particular. He stood up, walked to the fridge, opened the door, and this time grabbed a bottle of mineral water.
"Does Ravenshire have a good cafeteria?" he asked.
Victoria looked at him.
"Just asking," Romeo said. "Yeah, I'm in."
That night, after the three of them had left and the apartment returned to silence, Victoria sat alone at her desk.
Her laptop was open again. A folder she had long ago encrypted and never opened in front of anyone. Inside: old photos, documents with the Ravenshire Academy letterhead, and a single page containing only names—some crossed out, some not.
Her own name was there. The seventh line.
Uncrossed.
Victoria closed the folder, locked it again, and turned off the light.